The University Museums at the University of Delaware is the collective name for the University of Delaware

University of Delaware

The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...

's collections of American art, minerals, and Pre-Columbian ceramics.

The museums are open to the public and are used as laboratories by University of Delaware students enrolled in the Curatorial Apprenticeship Program. The collections are used in teaching a variety of subjects ranging from geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, to African American studies

African American studies

African American studies is a subset of Black studies or Africana studies. It is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to the study of the history, culture, and politics of African Americans...

 and art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

University Gallery

The University Gallery, housed in the "Old College" building on the north campus, contains more than 10,000 works. One feature of the collection is its extensive holdings of vintage and contemporary photographs, including comprehensive surveys of the works of Gertrude Käsebier

Gertrude Käsebier

Gertrude Käsebier was one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century. She was known for her evocative images of motherhood, her powerful portraits of Native Americans and her promotion of photography as a career for women.-Early life :Käsebier was born Gertrude...

 and Clarence Hudson White

Clarence Hudson White

Clarence Hudson White was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social life of rural America. After visiting the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in...

. Other notable collections include Pre-Columbian and Native American ceramics from the Moche

Moche

'The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru from about 100 AD to 800 AD, during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state...

 and Pueblo cultures; and a number American prints and drawings from the 19th century to the present.

In 2007 the University Gallery took charge of the University of Delaware collection with notable works by Howard Pyle

Howard Pyle

Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...

, Stanley Arthurs, Frank Schoonover

Frank Schoonover

Frank Earle Schoonover was an American illustrator. Born in Oxford, New Jersey, he studied under Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia and became part of what would be known as the Brandywine School...

 and N. C. Wyeth

N. C. Wyeth

Newell Convers Wyeth , known as N.C. Wyeth, was an American artist and illustrator. He was the pupil of artist Howard Pyle and became one of America's greatest illustrators...

 of the Brandywine School

Brandywine School

The Brandywine School was a style of illustration and an artists colony in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, near Brandywine Creek, founded by artist Howard Pyle at the end of the 19th century...

.

Mechanical Hall

The Mechanical Hall was renovated in 2004 to house the Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art, donated by Atlanta, Georgia art collector Paul R. Jones

Paul R. Jones

Paul Raymond Jones was an important American collector of African American art.Jones, one of five children of Will and Ella Jones, grew up in Muscoda, a Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company mining camp near Bessemer, Alabama...

. Jones' gift of several hundred important works from his personal collection was the outgrowth of a relationship that University of Delaware professor William Homer established in the early 1990s. The University Gallery mounted an exhibition of artwork from his collection in 1993. After negotiations regarding the conservation of the work and its pedagogical use, including outreach to Historically black colleges and universities

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....

, Jones effected the gift in 2001.

The Jones collection is considered the most comprehensive collection of 18th, 19th and 20th century African American art

African American art

African American art is a broad term describing the visual arts of the American black community . Influenced by various cultural traditions, including those of Africa, Europe and the Americas, traditional African American art forms include the range of plastic arts, from basket weaving, pottery,...

 and includes important works by Kofi Bailey, Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...

, Selma Burke

Selma Burke

Selma Hortense Burke was an American sculptor.Born in Mooresville, North Carolina to a farming family, she demonstrated an early interest in art. Her parents insisted she study a more marketable profession, and she graduated from the St. Agnes Training School for Nurses in Raleigh in 1924...

, Elizabeth Catlett

Elizabeth Catlett

Elizabeth Catlett Mora is an African-American sculptor and printmaker. Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politically charged....

, Robert Colescott

Robert Colescott

Robert H. Colescott, was an American painter. He is known for satirical genre and crowd subjects, often conveying his exuberant, comical, or bitter reflections on being African-American. He studied with Fernand Léger in Paris...

, David Driskell, David Hammons

David Hammons

David Hammons is an African-American artist mostly known for his works in and around New York City during the 1970s and 1980s.Much of his work, including Spade with Chains , reflects his commitment to the civil rights and Black Power movements...

, Lonnie Holley

Lonnie Holley

Lonnie Bradley Holley, sometimes known as The Sand Man , is an African American artist and art educator....

, Wifredo Lam

Wifredo Lam

Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla , better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cuban spirit and culture...

, Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence was an American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", though by his own account the primary influence was not so much French art as the shapes and colors of Harlem.Lawrence is among the best-known twentieth...

, Hughie Lee-Smith

Hughie Lee-Smith

Hughie Lee-Smith was an American artist and teacher whose signature works were slightly surreal in mood, often featuring distant figures seen under vast skies in desolate urban settings.-Life:...

, Eugene J. Martin

Eugene J. Martin

Eugene James Martin was a prolific African American visual artist.-Art:Eugene J...

 and P. H. Polk.

Mineralogical Museum

The Mineralogical Museum was created in 1964 with the gift of Irénée du Pont

Irénée du Pont

Irénée du Pont was a U.S. businessman, former president of the DuPont company and head of the Du Pont trust.-Biography:A descendant of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, he graduated from Andover in 1894 and MIT in 1897, then worked for Fenn’s Manufacturing Contracting Company for a number of years before...

's personal collection of mineral specimens, which he had acquired from George Frederick Kunz

George Frederick Kunz

George Frederick Kunz was an American mineralogist and mineral collector.- Overview :Kunz was born in New York City, USA, and began an interest in minerals at a very young age. By his teens, he had amassed a collection of over four thousand items, which he sold for four hundred dollars to the...

 in 1919.

The collection, which now resides in Penny Hall, includes numerous examples of minerals from exhausted mines, including a tourmaline

Tourmaline

Tourmaline is a crystal boron silicate mineral compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is classified as a semi-precious stone and the gem comes in a wide variety of colors...

 from the Himalaya Mine in San Diego, California

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

 and copper ore from the Quincy Mine

Quincy Mine

The Quincy Mine is an extensive set of copper mines located near Hancock, Michigan. The mine was owned by the Quincy Mining Company and operated between 1846 and 1945, although some activities continued through the 1970s. The Quincy Mine was known as "Old Reliable," as the Quincy Mine Company paid...

 on Keweenaw Peninsula

Keweenaw Peninsula

The Keweenaw Peninsula is the northern-most part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It projects into Lake Superior and was the site of the first copper boom in the United States. As of the 2000 census, its population was roughly 43,200...

 in Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

.

External links

• University Museums website